sara sohigian magarian archive

When Sara Sohigian Magarian (1909–1993) passed away, the family’s collection of textiles came to rest in her granddaughter Deborah Valoma’s hands. A cedar chest and numerous boxes were packed full of heirloom textiles; the most precious were crafted in the ancestral villages of the Ottoman Empire and miraculously rescued from the chaos of the early 1895 massacres and later 1915 genocide. Others, including those stitched by her grandmother, great grandmother, aunties, and cousins, were made in the Armenian-American diaspora.

The collection includes knitting, crocheting, tatting, bobbin lace, drawnwork, cutwork, embroidery, and most importantly, Armenian needlelace. As Deborah asserts: “The fact that my foremothers carefully protected their handwork and passed them to my grandmother for safekeeping underscores the importance they placed on textiles as holders of personal memories and cultural histories.”

After washing, cataloging, photographing, and properly storing each piece in archival tissue and boxes, Deborah began creating a database. Some of the makers' names were written down by her grandmother, but the provenance of other pieces remains a mystery even after careful research. Using photographs, her grandmother’s occasional notations, and official records (ship manifests, naturalization papers, marriage licenses, and death certificates) she was able to match some of the textiles to seven women on her family tree—mapping a kind of familial network of shared materiality.

To see more of the collection—including other techniques—go to Deborah Valoma’s website.